The weekend’s season-opening race bodes very well for the 2017 Formula 1 World Championship, doesn’t it?

For starters, a red car, not a silver one, won. And not only did it win under the control of Sebastian Vettel, it dominated. Mercedes driver Lewis Hamilton had no answer for the Ferrari’s pace, which is something we haven’t said for a very, very long time.

F1’s drastic aerodynamic changes played a pivotal part in the result. Pace was significantly faster – the quickest lap was just shy of 2.5sec shorter than last year’s – and the larger, more durable tyres allowed drivers to push for longer.

It was the reason Vettel was able to jump polesitter Hamilton after the first stops to take the lead, because he could keep the hammer down while Hamilton got stuck behind Max Verstappen’s Red Bull, having pitted before his rivals.

Had the Drag Reduction System (DRS) been more effective, Hamilton might have been able to blast past Verstappen. But it seems this year’s aerodynamics have reduced the system’s impact - which is a good thing.

Behind the sharp end of the field, there was plenty more on-track action, and Williams showed strong race pace not far behind the leaders. Force Indias and Toro Rossos traded places further back, and even the McLaren showed some promising potential, although not even Fernando Alonso could overcome the obvious power issues of Honda’s 2017 powertrain.

Visually, the 2017 cars looked quicker and drivers could be seen hustling them with more aggression than before. So simply put, watching a Formula 1 car be a Formula 1 car is more exciting this year.

Melbourne is often labelled as a unique race and the following, more conventional circuits will be better signals as to how 2017 will pan out. But as far as first weekends in a heavily altered Formula 1 championship go, this was a very good one.

I'm sure there will be good races and bad, as always. Ferrari just got a bit lucky and the win yesterday was hardly a dominant one, especially since the second car didn't even make the podium. Plus of the overtakes I saw were made during the single pit stops, which isn't exactly a spectacle. So let's not pre judge.

OK, the cars look nice and they go faster, but we want to see close action and there was precious little of that. Vettel passes Hamilton at the pitstop. Yawn. Lewis never got close to passing him back, on track. Further down the field there was very little action. Dull race.

I always thought that making more durable Pirelli tyres was a knee-jerk reaction to the problems the sport had. Sometimes the quick-degrading tyres had too much of an impact, but at least they provided some additional interest, e.g. with the possibility of pitstop mistakes. What we saw on Sunday was just a procession for most of the race. Allowing drivers to push throughout the race is all well and good, but if the new focus on aero stops them getting close to each other, really what is the point?

This will be my last time, after about 10 years of going. Worst ever race, if you could call it that. Bored to death throughout. No overtaking, no hope of any interest. Rubbish.
Wish I'd had a fast forward button myself...
Robbo